Motivation There are way too many inaccuracies that go back to verification, and the tools available to verify this information often either do not seem very easy to use because they take too long to load or are not accessible while you are browsing other things. We set out to develop a product that could make it feel like it was instantaneously, visually, and effortlessly easier to verify the credibility of information, whether you are reading an article, scanning for hypertext or looking for other types of factual evidence in real time.
Product overview Vouch is essentially a live credibility verification system that provides verification on claims and URLs against multiple data sources: i.e., through the use of fact-checking and breaking news data and combining it with standard website-level credibility indicators such as domain reputation score, source quality, and page metadata. Vouch also has a Chrome Extension that users can use to bring verification information into their daily visit to the Web.
The issues we experienced The URL analysis functional component was difficult to make useful because people browse differently than the way we initially intended. Metadata extraction needed improvement; handling the trustworthiness of web pages needed further enhancement; and extensions needed to work correctly so Vouch would neither fail on article pages nor treat reputable publishers in the same way as publishers producing non-reputable content or satire.
An additional concern was to provide a polished front-end but leave the back-end as a real API integration environment without necessitating a seamless user experience, providing appropriate error handling, and having the back-end environment setup done in a safe way to allow for future deployments.
The things we’ve learned Credibility is a combination of several variables including whether the statement is true or false, along with the credibility of the source and context of the claim, how claims are framed by the source, and how clearly claims are supported with valid evidence and presented to the user. From a technical perspective, we have learned many things regarding integrating multiple API services from external companies including extracting web pages using real-world processes and safely managing any secret keys.
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